Travelling Light – The Plan

And of course I am realising that my 2 ½ stolid readers, all of them me re-reading what I have written and finding mistakes that have to be corrected, are wondering what the hell Glenochar, a tiny cottage on Frosty Creek, and Muckadilla have to do with Stage 4 and the finding of a living in a new life in a motel somewhere west of the Great Divide.

This is where my story becomes whimsical, because I know there are those (Capricorns mainly, and the odd Aries) who think this Astrology thing is all bunkum; and perhaps it is. However, being a Piscean of longer standing than I care to admit to, strangely and for whatever reason I seem to have spent my life wanting to swim in two directions at once. I also embody a great number of other Piscean charms, including dodgy feet, but the constant tug’o’war has been a major one.

Consequently, I have a suspicion that the new life we have devised, for the short-term at least, is going to suit me. We are to have a double life, thanks to our business partners Arthur & Irene who will share in the running of the Motel of our Dreams. We plan (God willing) to do month about, the on month being motel duty, and in the off month we retreat to our view of Frosty Creek and the magpies and the crows and the bleating of sheep and barking of sheepdogs; not to mention the rustle of the snake who lives under the house, and whom we hope will move out now that we are moving in (but you can never be sure).

There, Robert will imbibe the air that begat him and nurtured him for the first 40 or so years of his life; and probably a good many other things too.

I will look out the window of my writer’s donga at the gum trees along Frosty Creek and find my muse in the calling of the stormbirds and the peace of the bush. Already Glenochar has a magnetic effect on me. It seems to realign all those disparate ions that start humming in the town and crackling in the city, leaving me ragged and rushing to keep up with I know not what, as I become one with them in their ‘rush and nervous haste’ ……..

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me

As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,

With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,

For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

(from Clancy of the Overflow by Banjo Paterson)

So – Muckadilla is the base. The motel is the other base. Double life. Send your snail mail to PO Box 597, Dalby, Qld 4405. It will find me eventually.